On Our Radar: Child Care Comes to MIT

Customers are getting a say in the boardroom. A new study from IBM found that 55% of interviewed CEOs said that customers have the most influence on their “strategic vision and business strategy.” The study is based on conversations with 4,183 C-Suite executives in 70 countries. To see the findings digested into charts, maps and pictures, check out this colorful infographic. — Rachel Feintzeig

Here’s something we never expected to see: A story in praise of the micromanager. Sydney Finkelstein of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College writes on BBC Capital that delegating is good, but delegating and being intimately involved in what happens next is better. — Francesca Donner

MIT just got a new, cutting-edge facility: a day care. The Boston Globe reports on why billionaire, conservative businessman David Koch – an MIT alum — gave $20 million for the childcare center. — Rachel Feintzeig

There’s a lot we can learn from the lowly milkshake, at least when Clayton Christensen is doing the teaching. The Harvard professor turns traditional marketing on its head as follows: Instead of asking what gets a customer to buy a product, ask what job a customer wants to accomplish with said product. In the case of the milkshake, it turned out customers were “hiring” a milkshake to make a boring commute more exciting. Unexpected? Yes. (Hat tip: Business Insider.) — Francesca Donner

And finally…

It may not be too much of a stretch to say she made it possible for millions of women to enter the workforce by liberating them from some of their domestic drudgery. Scientist Ruth Benerito, who died Saturday at age 97, invented the “easy-care cotton” process that produced wash-and-wear clothing, freeing housewives from hours of ironing their husbands’ shirts, writes the WSJ. — Lauren Weber